2filmcriticsFeb 22, 20192 min readEverybody Knows ★★★What is it that everybody knows? (Or that “nobody knows,” the film’s original title)?
2filmcriticsFeb 20, 20192 min readShoplifters ★★★ 1/2 The group has its pleasures, including crowding onto a tiny back porch to listen to fireworks they can’t see.
2filmcriticsFeb 5, 20193 min readCold War ★★★ 1/2 Full of unexpected, and often inexplicable, or even perverse, twists and turns
2filmcriticsFeb 1, 20192 min readThe Favourite ★★★ 1/2 If there were an Oscar for Best Ensemble, these three women would be “favourites.”
2filmcriticsJan 30, 20192 min readCreed II ★★ 1/2 Rocky Balboa came from somewhere....Adonis Creed comes from nowhere.
2filmcriticsJan 20, 20193 min readIf Beale Street Could Talk ★★★ 1/2 Deploying Baldwin’s voice of anger and rage to vilify whites and the American system of justice.
2filmcriticsJan 14, 20194 min readRoma ★★★★ Italian neo-realism meets Federico Fellini--in Mexico City
2filmcriticsDec 18, 20183 min readCan You Ever Forgive me? ★★★ Jack and Lee share a dislike of the elite; she stole one of their coats, he peed on their furs. Welcome to the buddy film
2filmcriticsDec 15, 20183 min readGreen Book ★★★ 1/2 Tony’s community invokes the white tribalism that’s central to today’s contentious racist, anti-immigrant Trumpian political culture.
2filmcriticsDec 6, 20181 min readThe House with a Clock in its Walls ★★1/2 Young Lewis learns the trade and saves the day. Who would have guessed?
2filmcriticsNov 16, 20183 min readWildlife ★★★ 1/2Family dinners go from elaborate Betty Crocker meals to canned food to eating out of cans.
2filmcriticsNov 6, 20182 min readKindergarten Teacher ★★1/2 Obsession, it turns out, isn’t complexity.
2filmcriticsOct 26, 20181 min readA Star is Born ★★★In an excessively maudlin penultimate scene, a dog whimpers outside a garage.
2filmcriticsOct 18, 20183 min readMuseo ★★★ 1/2The bold, “Topkapi”-like theft has a deeper meaning than the desire for high-risk thrills.
2filmcriticsSep 8, 20183 min readEighth Grade ★★★1/2Fourteen-year-0ld Elsie Fisher is Kayla Day in 'Eighth Grade,' Bo Burnham’s riveting first feature.
2filmcriticsSep 5, 20182 min readBlacKkKlansman ★★★Lee reminds us that the KKK is as anti-Semitic as it is racist.
2filmcriticsAug 9, 20183 min readSorry to Bother You ★★★To succeed as a black man you’ve got to act white: that’s one of the humiliations that mark this film.
2filmcriticsJul 30, 20182 min readA Ciambra ★★★Exposes the dyads of an expanding world and tribalism, of self-identity and the group, of friendship and family.
2filmcriticsJul 15, 20183 min read The First Purge ★★Like “Get Out!”, The First Purge offers a strong dose of “white people in power are evil.”
2filmcriticsMay 9, 20183 min readLoro 1 ★★★In the film's second hour, Sorrentino's Berlusconi is more pathetic than crude.